France

The disclosure to General de Gaulle of the Manhattan project, contributed to the creation in October 1945 in France of the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique. Fortunately for France, however, the Norwegian government agreed to supply the first heavy water manufactured after the war. The Communist Party had submitted an amendment designed to elicit a guarantee that none of the plutonium produced would ever be used for making bombs in France or elsewhere. The application of the Treaty could have precluded France from undertaking a military atomic effort as the prior agreement of all five of its partners would have been required. France’s position was defended by Jules Moch, its representative at the disarmament negotiations. In spite of his being personally opposed to French nuclear weapons, Moch declared that, in the absence of a general agreement on nuclear disarmament applying to all countries, France intended to go ahead with its test programme.